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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Banksy Hits NYC Part 31

Well today is the final day of Banksy’s month long street art
show taking place in New York and with it the final piece of Better Out Than In popped up in Queens. The balloon lettered throw up appeared around 6:30
a.m. and of course is already drawing massive crowds. The famed Bristol artist
also gifted a design that’s intended to be printed on a shirt to commemorate
the show, as is always the case with the provided graphic it’s free and up to
you to do the printing. Funnily enough it resembles my own graphic I threw up for an earlier story on the exhibition.

For my money I’ve most certainly enjoyed the circus, some of
the pieces are up there with the artists best works to date, rumor has it the
LA is is up next for the month of December but only time will tell for sure.

Banksy had this to say about his experience of the thirty
plus days spent in the Big Apple…

"Well, this is the last day of the show, and I'd like to say
we're going out on a high note. And, I guess in a way, we are. [Cue "New
York, New York"] This is a sideways take on the ubiquitous spray-painted
bubble lettering that actually floats. It's an homage of sorts to the most
prevalent form of graffiti in the city that invented it for the modern era. Or,
it's another Banksy piece that's full of hot air.

So, what does the artist hope to have achieved with this
so-called residency? "If just one child has been inspired to pick up a can
of paint and make some art--well that would be statistically disappointing
considering how much work I put in."

Banksy asserts that outside is where art should live,
amongst us. And rather than street art being a "fad," maybe it's the
last thousand years of art history that are the blip. When art came inside in
service of the church and institutions. But art's rightful place is on the cave
walls of our communities. Where it can act as a public service, provoke debate,
voice concerns, forge identities.

The world we live in today is run, visually at least, by
traffic signs, billboards, and planning committees. Is that it? Don't we want
to live in a world made of art, not just decorated by it?